Likes

“Likes” is told in a series of 30 vignettes, where longer sections narrated in the third person from Dave’s perspective are interspersed with brief descriptions of his daughter Ivy’s Instagram posts. This structure sets the parameters for the story’s major conflict: Dave’s struggle to understand his adolescent daughter is an ever-present part of his life, not something defined by one specific incident or that improves linearly. The vignettes highlight everyday moments of tension or connection between the two, paralleling the ups and downs of teenage mood swings. This structure also helps connect background elements to the story’s main action, such as the ongoing anxiety the characters feel regarding the 2016 presidential election. Without making the story explicitly political—this election or its candidates are never directly named—scenes that mention the debate, Donald Trump’s cadence, or voting stickers are interspersed with conversations between Dave and Ivy in the car, Ivy at physical therapy, or Ivy dancing. The blending of these elements—the personal and the political—expands Dave and Ivy’s relationship. He and Ivy don’t have a particularly bad relationship; rather, it reflects the universal dynamic between parents and teens, establishing the theme of Overcoming Generational Divisions. This universality is reinforced by Dave being called “the dad” throughout the entire story, only named in the final scene.

The vignettes that consist of Instagram posts emphasize the generational divide as they are filtered through Dave’s perspective. On one hand, the descriptions are specific and make the objects in the images feel real. Through Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s imagery, they take on a tactile quality: “a peeled-off pair of ballet tights, splayed on the white tiles of a bathroom floor” (181); “The welt shiny with ointment, and pink” (199). While these images are vivid, Dave cannot parse what they mean. What is so clear to Ivy’s adolescent mind is lost to her father. While this is made clear through Dave’s constant introspection about his daughter’s unknowable thoughts and feelings, it is also shown through some of the image descriptions. For example, Dave describes a Starbucks pink drink as “a liquid the color of Pepto-Bismol. In it floated small chunks of something red” (193), an ironic image comparing a sweet drink to medicine, the strawberries reduced to something vaguely revolting. With this, Bynum recreates his confusion in the prose. Their generational divide is deepened by Ivy’s only using visual media—social media posts and YouTube videos—while Dave and Dorothy are partial to traditional forms of media like television broadcasts and periodicals. Dave and Ivy often fail to connect because they have completely different cultural touchstones.

On Ivy’s part, the Instagram posts are a way for her to communicate with friends and shape her budding identity. Her father might not understand them, but he is not her audience. When they hit the mark with her peers, she receives affirmation through the like button. This is one of the ways the story explores The Power of Non-Verbal Communication—when Ivy gets a lot of likes, she is delighted. One scene where she gets 74 likes on a photo is paired with other online social successes, like maintaining a Snapchat streak. Likewise, this power can be negative: When Ivy is not using her phone, she is despondent; in one scene, she asks if she can be homeschooled, indicating that she feels isolated by her peers, and possibly bullied. Notably, Ivy does not stay in any emotional state for long, whether elated or despondent. Her emotional peaks and valleys are depicted in her posts, showing how visual media likewise gives her a powerful platform for self-expression.

With this, the posts also explore Coming of Age and Self-Discovery. The story’s title, “Likes,” both refers to how others engage with Ivy’s posts and the content of them; Ivy’s posts are mostly things she likes, the objects that are meaningful to her. On the border between child and teen, Ivy is curating a representation of herself for the world to see, one that includes both childlike images and more mature ones. Sweet treats like ice cream and whimsical cupcakes contrast with “a pair of lips, shining wetly” (186) or her black post the day after the election, “a photo of total blackness. As if the camera had misfired, or the film had been accidentally exposed” (191). Her posts contain the multitude of her: She is optimistic, youthful, aware of the world, and curious about her sexuality. Her chosen pink color scheme represents her desire to grow into girlhood or womanhood, curating things she likes into a familiar mold. Dave counters Dorothy about the color scheme, using a post of Michelle Obama as an example, but Dorothy remarks that Michelle Obama’s dress is pink in the photo. This reinforces how Ivy engages with the world, taking things that interest her and figuring out how they fit into her adolescent life. The black post, then, is particularly striking as the only non-pink one in her feed, showing the depth of her confusion and grief after the 2016 election. Her feelings cannot be readjusted or aestheticized, and the event does not fit into her understanding of the world.

While this method of digital communication remains alienating to Dave throughout the story, Ivy manages to channel another form of non-verbal connection to finally connect with him at the end of the story. Her physical distortion against the glass window calls back to her dance practice, showing that this method of communication is truly hers. While Dave cannot understand Ivy’s posts (and at first does not understand her strange poster), he does understand physical connection. His palm pressed against hers on the glass evokes the ways parents soothe their children through touch, something he has doubtlessly done countless times. When they meet each other halfway, they are finally able to share a moment of complete understanding, separated only by transparent glass that shakes against their laughter. This optimistic final image reinforces that the peaks and valleys of parent-child relationships are normal; at the end of the day, Dave and Ivy will always have each other.